There was really nothing else that he could answer. Though he could
discuss Alice Rokeby, one of those vague, sweet women who seem designed
by Nature to develop the sentiment of chivalry in the breast of man, he
felt that it would be disloyal to speak lightly of his hero, John
Benham. "You could never guess where I've been," he said with relief
because he had got rid of the subject. "I might as well tell you in the
beginning that I have just left the Governor."

"Gideon Vetch!" exclaimed Corinna, as she dropped into a chair at his
side. "Why, I thought you were as far apart as the poles!"

"So we were until ten minutes--no, until exactly an hour ago."

"It makes my blood boil when I think of that circus rider in the
Governor's mansion," said the General indignantly. "Do you know what my
father would have called that fellow? He would have called him a common
scalawag--a common scalawag, sir!"

The Judge laughed softly. There was nothing, as he sometimes observed,
that flavoured life so deliciously as a keen appreciation of comedy.
"Now, I should call him a decidedly uncommon one," he remarked. "The
trouble with you, my dear Powhatan, is that you are still in the village
stage of the social instinct. In your proper period, when we Virginians
were merely one of the several tribes in these United States, you may
have served an excellent purpose; but the tribal instinct is dying out
with the village stage. If we are going to exist at all outside of the
archaeological department of a museum, we must learn to accept--. We
must let in new blood."

"Do you mean to tell me, Horatio," blustered the General, "that I've got